Operators of gambling systems such as those used on racecourses are traditionally divided into two groups.
The first group is that which accepts wagers with a payout which is agreed at the time the wager is made. These are `bookmakers` and offer `fixed price bets`. There are normally a number of bookmakers at a racecourse in a competitive market and the average of their offered fixed prices or `odds` at the time the race starts is the `starting price`.
The second group accepts wagers on the basis that all monies which have been bet will be shared amongst the winners after the deduction of a commission to cover the overheads of the operator. These are `tote operators` and pay a `dividend` to winners. There is normally only one such operator at a racecourse and its activities are normally defined by government regulation.
The operatees of gambling systems are `punters`.
Fixed price betting is inherently more attractive to the avid punter as he knows at the time of making the wager what his winnings will be. With tote betting, the actual dividend paid may be considerably less than that expected at the time the wager was made. To satisfy this demand, tote operators would like to provide a fixed price betting service for punters.
This invention provides a fixed price betting service in conjunction with the provision of totalisator betting.
One problem in providing a fixed price betting service on its own is that it is essentially gambling on the part of the operator. Having accepted some wagers and their incurred liabilities, the fixed price betting operator has no guarantee that other wagers will be made to cover that liability. Tote operators, being government legislated bodies, are not empowered to gamble in this way. The embodiments of the invention overcome this problem and allows tote operators to gain income merely from the commission deducted from total turnover.
A second problem is that of deciding what prices are to be offered at the commencement of betting. If these are not representative of the true merits of the contestants, either intenetionally or unintentionally on the part of the individual deciding them, then the operator could be liable for losses as outlined above. The embodiments of the invention overcome this problem by automatically determining what these offered prices should be.
A third problem is that of maintaining a distribution of wagers in such a way that the liability of any one contestant does not exceed the total amount wagered. The embodiments of the invention overcome this problem by automatically adjusting the prices being offered to account for the total amount wagered and the liability already incurred for that contestant.
A number of other problems related to immunity from price-rigging, stability of offered odds and the maintenance of a minimum totalisator dividend are also addressed by embodiments of this invention.
According to one aspect, the present invention comprises a fixed odds betting system providing fixed price and expected dividend betting including;
a control unit, PA0 a plurality of betting terminals coupled to said control unit for inputting details of a punter's wager, PA0 a plurality of display means for displaying odds and expected dividends, coupled to said control unit, a control terminal for inputting control instructions to the system, coupled to said control unit, said control unit comprising: PA0 said control unit adapted to operate such that the liability incurred for any one contestant cannot exceed the total amount of money wagered, PA0 and, said betting terminals are adapted to issue a record of each betting transaction indicating details of wager, and the fixed price payable in respect of said wager following completion of the calculations by said control unit in respect of said transaction, PA0 said system adapted to initially only provide expected dividend betting until the total amount of uncancellable expect dividend wagers is equal to a predetermined figure after which both expected dividend and fixed price betting are provided.
liability calculation means for calculating from the information received from each betting terminal the liability incurred for each contestant, PA1 first accumulation means for calculating the total amount of money wagered; PA1 second accumulation means for calculating the total amount of uncancellable expected dividend wagers; PA1 fixed price calculation means for calculating the fixed price payable in respect of each contestant; PA1 expected dividend calculation means for calculating the expected dividend payable in respect of each contestant;